CAGAYAN de Oro City will soon be free of elderly begging for alms in the streets as the City Government builds a home for the aged facility worth P20 million in Maitum, Upper Puerto, this city.
City Administrator Teddy Sabuga-a said groundbreaking ceremony is set this Friday, October 5, for the state-of-the-art facility called "Cagayan de Oro Golden Home," which will be the first in Cagayan de Oro.
Currently, the city houses neglected elderly along with the mentally-challenged individuals at the Residential Care and Differently-Abled Center of the JR Borja General Hospital.
"We will clean up the whole city of Cagayan de Oro, we will not allow senior citizens nga gapanglimos sa kadalanan (to beg for alms in the streets)," Sabuga-a said, also the head of the City Social Welfare and Development office.
"We want our senior citizens to be comfortable, and we want this facility to be among their options when they get old, because whether we like it or not, some really are neglected by their families, this is why the city must come in for intervention," he added.
The facility will have its own clinic, chapel, and a mini-park. It can house 40 elderly, men or women.
The lot where the facility will be built is part of the 10 hectares donated by the Rosales family to the City Government in the '90s during the administration of the late Mayor Pablo Magtajas.